An application was received from Greg Leppert, requesting permission for a curb cut at the premises numbered 147 Otis Street; said petition has received approval from Inspectional Services, Traffic, Parking and Transportation, Historical Commission and Public Works. Response has been received from the neighborhood association

General Information Attestation Curb Cut 54799 Submitted On: Aug 27, 2019 Applicant Greg Leppert [phone removed] [email removed] Location 147 Otis St Cambridge, MA 02141 Frontage (in feet) 30 Setback - distance from building to sidewalk (in feet) 0 Distance from proposed driveway to surrounding structures and property line (in feet) 0 Length of proposed driveway (in feet) 8 Width of proposed driveway (in feet) 10 Size of proposed driveway (square feet) 80 Location of any trees, sign posts, fire hydrants, utility poles, etc., in direct vicinity of proposed driveway Postal Box: 5'-2", Stop sign: 7'-10", Crosswalk: 15'-2", Intersection: 27'-2 13/16" Full Name Greg Leppert Date 08/26/2019

OFFICE OF THE CITY CLERK CITY OF CAMBRIDGE [phone removed] FAX [phone removed] ANOTHONY I. WILSON PAULA M. CRANE CITY CLERK DEPUTY CITY CLERK CITY HALL, 795 MASSACHUSETTS AVENUE CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS 02139 Dear Neighborhood Representative: This office is in receipt of a copy of an application from: The City Council has directed that all curb cut petitions be submitted to the appropriate Neighborhood Associations for the locality where the curb cut would be made, so that the association may have an opportunity for review, prior to action by the City Council. Please indicate by return mail your approval or disapproval of the petition within twenty-one days from the date of this letter. If the response is "disapproval" please state reasons. Be sure to sign the form and include a daytime phone number. I have enclosed a self-addressed stamped envelope to facilitate your reply. As soon as this office has received both the completed application and your neighborhood association response, I will place the petition on the agenda for the next City Council meeting. If I do not receive a response from your neighborhood organization by twenty-one days from the date of this letter, I will place the petition on the agenda for the next City Council meeting. If your neighborhood association cannot complete its review by twenty-one days from today, you may extend the reply time another seven days by requesting an extension by letter to me with a copy to the petitioner. However, I urge you to make every effort to complete your review as soon as possible. Thank you for your cooperation. Sincerely yours, Anthony I. Wilson City Clerk hereby _______ approve _______ disapprove of said driveway petition. Comments: ____________________________________________________________________ Signature of authorized association representative Daytime telephone no. cc: Petitioner January 13, 2019 Greg Leppert of 147 Otis Street for a Curb Cut at the location of 147 Otis Street with a frontage of 30', setback of 0', distance from surrounding stuctures of 0', length 8', width 10' and a total size of 80 sq. ft. East Cambridge Planning Team, East Cambridge Planning Team, East Chuck Hinds, Bethany Stevens, Mike Delia and Michael Hawley RESET PRINT

A Neighborhood Organization for the Betterment of East Cambridge East End House 105 Spring Street, Cambridge MA 02141 [email removed] February 3, 2020 Cambridge City Council Cambridge City Hall 795 Massachusetts Avenue, 2nd Floor Cambridge, MA 02139 RE: Proposed Curb Cut at 147 Otis Street (Application 54799) Dear Mayor Siddiqui, Vice Mayor Mallon, Councillors Carlone, McGovern, Nolan, Simmons, Sobrinho- Wheeler, Toomey, and Zondervan: The East Cambridge Planning Team (ECPT) reviewed the package for the proposed curb cut at 147 Otis Street at its January 22, 2020, general meeting. The Applicant, Greg Leppert, presented the plan to ECPT and answered questions from the members in attendance. The property is located at the corner of Otis and Sixth Streets, so it has frontage on both streets. The curb cut, as we understand it, would be 9 feet long and be located on Sixth Street through an existing tree well containing a stump. It is not known to ECPT when and why the mature tree was removed, but it appears in Google Maps street view dated September 2018 (see attached picture). General Policy ECPT has adopted a general position of not supporting curb cuts for a single parking space as they:  Encourage car use, which city policy discourages  Privatize public space, the related sidewalk and street space  Remove public street parking  Frequently reduce private open/green space, which is at a premium in our very dense neighborhood, by turning it into paved space for a driveway and parking  Pose threats to public and private trees, by cutting them down to make way for driveways and/or parking spaces or by severely damaging their roots, which often results in the tree being razed for public safety Specific Objections ECPT has specific objections to the 147 Otis St curb cut request including:  Traffic. There is heavy traffic on Sixth Street, including that generated by the Cambridge Police Station a few blocks away at 125 Sixth St.  Funeral Home Parking. The funeral home diagonally across the intersection regularly draws significant numbers of cars, which are often double-parked, making a curb cut this close to the corner even more dangerous.  Frontage. The home is located on the corner, giving the home owner substantially more adjacent street frontage for convenient parking than most homes in the neighborhood.  Tree Well. The City would have to move an existing tree well to an inferior location closer to other trees. We have also received several letters and e-mails from abutters saying they were not notified and do oppose this curb cut, as well one claiming the curb cut is several feet less than the 15’2” shown on their plan and the 15’ required by law. We have asked those abutters to send their comments directly to the Council for their consideration.

Very truly yours, Charles T. Hinds President, ECPT cc: Anthony I. Wilson, City Clerk, clerk@cambridgema.gov Picture of curb cut location from Google Maps captured on September, 2018, by Google

Dear City Councilors and Neighbors, Thank you for your consideration of a curb cut at our home at 147 Otis Street, in East Cambridge. As a family with a young child, and plans for more, a curb cut would do wonders to increase our safety while loading kids into and out of their carseats (which we currently do while cars squeeze past us on narrow East Cambridge streets) and allow us to charge an electric vehicle to replace our gasoline powered car. Our home is at a unique intersection, where a funeral home and church often bring an influx of parked cars, and after reviewing the plans I hope you’ll find that they not only improve on-street parking for others in the area — using ​only 5ft​ of existing on-street parking space to remove a roughly 15ft car from the road — they also increase the safety of the intersection by improving visibility for pedestrians at the crosswalk. We look forward to the future possibility of a car-free Cambridge and welcome initiatives to, for instance, remove all cars from East Cambridge streets as New York City (among others) has done in select areas; we would love to see a day when our children have the freedom to play in the streets in front of our home. Until then, I hope you’ll join the overwhelming support of our abutters and grant us the opportunity to improve not only our living situation but the intersection as a whole. We know you may have additional questions, as does the East Cambridge Planning Team, so we’ve included answers to the most common ones and look forward to answering any others in person when we meet before the council. Thanks, Greg and Kate (and Ben)

Q: If the curb cut will be longer than 5ft, how does it only impact 5ft of on-street parking space? A:​ The city codes require curb cuts be placed 15ft from a crosswalk while limiting on-street parking to at least 20ft from a crosswalk (see our note below about safety). With our proposed curb cut, this places 5ft in a zone where on-street parking is already prohibited, with the remaining falling outside of this zone. Q: How does this curb cut improve the safety of the crosswalk at this intersection? A:​ The Cambridge parking code requires vehicles to park at least 20ft away from a crosswalk so that drivers can see pedestrians waiting to cross the street, but this setback is routinely violated at this corner. Our proposed curb cut would set the closest parkable space at 25ft from the crosswalk, helping to prevent drivers from blocking this safe zone. Q: I know there was once a tree near this spot, what happened to it and will it be replanted? A:​ As tree lovers ourselves, we wondered the same and reached out to city arborist, David Lefcourt, for answers. His response was that he called for the tree to be removed on October 18th, 2018 (before we owned our home) due to health issues and, though he had initially hoped to replant this tree, circumstances prevent it regardless of whether a curb cut is installed. From David: “I had our tree contractor remove the tree in front of 33 [Sixth] Street on October 18th, 2018 due to the tree being in significant decline.” “Unfortunately, we are unable to install a new street tree where the old one was removed. The existing tree well is too close (within 15'--20' feet) to the stop sign which presents a potential safety issue. We cannot move the tree well further right (away from the stop sign) due to the underground utilities. The tree well will be closed in conjunction with the Chapter 90 Sixth Street project.” Q: Will there be any issues with traffic on Sixth Street? A:​ As is required for all curb cuts, the Cambridge Traffic and Parking Department, who is our best authority on the effects of traffic in the area, has reviewed the plans and approved them. Q: Does the curb cut meet the required setbacks, including a 15ft distance from the intersection? A:​ As part of approving the plans, the Department of Public Works made an on-site visit where Superintendent of Streets TJ Shea, city engineer Emily Paulson, and the contractor overseeing the Sixth Street Reconstruction Project, Carl Howard verified that all safe and required distances will be met. Since the street, sidewalks, and crosswalks will be updated as part of the Sixth Street Reconstruction Project, their measurements accounted for these planned updates.

Q: When would the work be completed and what impact will the construction have? A:​ The sidewalks and curbs of Sixth Street are set to be completely rebuilt, this Spring, as part of the Sixth Street Reconstruction Project. This curb cut would be added as part of that work and would have no additional impact on the street or city resources, beyond what was already planned for that reconstruction. Q: Since you’re on the corner, don’t you have plenty of space near your home where you could park? A:​ While we do have frontage on both Sixth and Otis Streets, Charlie’s funeral home and Sacred Heart Catholic Church (both of which we love) are also at this corner and each one regularly draws significant numbers of cars. As one neighbor, whose family has lived at our corner for three generations, said in support of our curb cut: “Our parking situation is exacerbated by the funeral home and the church. I’m resigned to the fact that I can not park near my house ever.” Q: Will this impact any open or green space? A: ​When we bought 147 Otis Street, the area where the Board of Zoning Appeals granted us space to place a car was entirely covered in old, nonpermeable cement pavers. We’ve removed those and, whether we have a curb cut or not, will be rebuilding this area with fully permeable pavers tailormade to allow grass and other greenery to grow through. Q: What are your plans for Mabel’s old store and why did you put big windows there? A:​ That will be our living room! We restored the look of the old store windows because we love our corner and wanted both the light and the connection with the community that windows like those bring.

UP Permeable pavers DN Dishwasher 1DB24 SB36 3DB27 3DB30 3DB30 3DB27 3DB27 3DB27 B6814 Dishwasher 1DB24 SB36 3DB27 3DB30 3DB30 3DB27 3DB27 3DB27 B6814 U322694 U242494 U322694 U322694 U271394 U271194 U3616102 U92494 Refrigerator Under counter trash can STOP W272915 W2736 W2736 7240TC 5080 3822FX 3872FX 6723FX 6772FX 7623FX 7672FX 4368 7623FX 7672FX 2840DH 2840DH 2068 0730FX 0730FX 4525FX 4908FX 3068 0730FX 0730FX UP UP UP 1'-11 3/4" 4'-6 3/4" 3'-4 13/16" 4'-1 1/2" 7'-5 7/8" 27'-2 13/16" 15'-2" 10' 20' SIXTH STREET OTIS STREET Replace existing windows with new, larger double glazed windows Replace existing window with window pair and align with windows above and below Add new window Add new door PROPOSED NEW CURB CUT EXISTING NO-PARKING ZONE Per Cambridge parking regulations 2268 2268 HB UP P / L P / L P / L P / L P / L P / L P / L P / L P / L P / L P / L P / L P / L P / L P / L P / L P / L P / L P / L P / L 147 OTIS STREET

LOCATION:147 OTIS STREET CITY, STATE:CAMBRIDGE, MA APPLICANT: LEPPERT & DARLING CERTIFIED TO: NEEDHAM BANK DATE: 10-03-2018 18-09529 ZONE: X COMMUNITY PANEL No. 25017C0577E EFFECTIVE DATE: 6/4/2010 DEED REF: 25383/566 PLAN REF: ASSESSORS

To the BZA Board / BZA-017191-2019: My name is Harry Fullerton and I’m writing in regards to the condos at 31 and 33 Sixth Street, situated immediately behind 147 Otis Street. The former owners/occupants of the Sixth Street condos were dear friends of mine and, when they passed this year, they left a will asking that I oversee their estate and associated properties. Consequently, the units are vacant for the time being and we’re currently working to resolve their estate. The owners of 147 Otis shared their plans for the parking spot near the shared property line and, as someone who worked as a contractor for many years, I think it’s a smart addition that’s designed with the neighboring condos in mind, one that will have little to no impact on 31-33 Sixth Street or the neighborhood. The driveway is short and the fence they’re constructing will hide the car from both the view from the condos and the view from the street. Given that there are no bedrooms on the first floor of the Sixth Street condos, it would hardly be noticed anyway. As for the proposed dormer facing the backyard of the condos, along with the proposed deck above the old store, it’s clear they’ve worked to tastefully integrate these elements into the historic building and I think the end result will be a home that brightens the street, including the condos nextdoor. I hope you’ll grant them the variances they’ve requested and help them build a home for their family. Regards, Harry Fullerton